


Common People Like Me

by shessocold



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Best Friends, Canon Compliant, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, M/M, Marauders, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), POV Bisexual Character, Post-Sirius Black's Prank on Severus Snape, Smoking, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2020-11-16 14:08:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20835608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shessocold/pseuds/shessocold
Summary: Sirius has taken up smoking.





	Common People Like Me

**Author's Note:**

> Many many thanks to Arya, Ed, Gloom and the (amazing) mods. 
> 
> **Theme:** Journey  
**Team:** Embarkment  
**Prompt:** “There is nothing like a train journey for reflection.” -Tahir Shah

It’s very hard to stay cross at Sirius when he’s grinning, not that Remus was exactly fuming to begin with. _You should really keep better company, Lupin_, Madam Pomfrey had told him, and she’d sounded rather serious. But Remus doesn't particularly trust the school matron’s judgement — if it were up to her, he suspects, she’d have him permanently confined to the Infirmary for safekeeping. And anyway, the actual victim of Sirius’ prank had been Snape.

Hard to disapprove of a joke at Snape’s expense. 

“Fancy meeting you here,” says Remus, grinning back at Sirius from across the deserted corridor. “Pomfrey made it sound like they’d had you summarily executed, and then expelled for good measure.” 

Sirius laughs. 

“Nah, they’ve only sent for my mother,” he says, pointing helpfully at the staircase that leads to the Headmaster’s office. “Which means that in a couple of hours I probably _will_ be begging for a swift beheading, come to think of it.” 

“Well, it’s been nice knowing you,” says Remus, stifling a yawn. He’s slept a bit in the Infirmary, but nothing beats the comfort of one’s own bed, or the company of one’s own best mates. “Do we wait up, or do you think they’ll have you chained to the ceiling overnight?” 

Sirius laughs again. 

“Get some sleep,” he advises, with uncharacteristical warmth. “Just in case there is some early morning avenging to do on my behalf.” 

*** 

James, it turns out, doesn’t quite agree with Remus’ assessment of Sirius’ behaviour. 

“He just doesn't see what he's done wrong,” he tells Remus, who’s exhausted and also privately convinced that James is in no position to be so judgy all of a sudden. “I think he should apologise to you, at least.” 

Remus scoffs. 

“I don't want him to apologise. He knows that he fucked up, I promise, he's not stupid.” 

James is silent for a bit. 

“Yeah, that's my point exactly,” he says, eventually, without quite meeting Remus' gaze. “He has no excuses.” 

*** 

“I don’t know what’s got into him,” says Sirius, the following morning, frowning at the still mostly unsmoked cigarette he’s holding. “Not like we haven’t done much worse together, is it?” 

“Yeah,” agrees Remus, secretly heartened by Sirius’ matter-of-fact attitude. “It was just, well, a prank.” 

“Precisely,” says Sirius, his eyes shiny from trying to suppress a cough. “Are you sure you don’t want a drag?” 

“Yeah, I’m OK.” 

“Let’s go, then,” says Sirius, and he Vanishes his cigarette. The toilet cubicle they’ve squeezed into is filled with smoke, Remus realizes with a twinge of panic. Their next class is Transfiguration, and he hates the thought of what McGonagall might do to Sirius if she realizes they have been smoking, on top of everything else. Sirius doesn’t seem to share Remus’ concerns. 

“What are you staring at me for?” 

“We should find a way to get the smell out of our clothes and hair,” suggests Remus. 

Sirius shrugs. 

“Not like they can give me more detention than I already got.” 

_They could expel you, for starters,_ thinks Remus, uneasily, eyeing a nasty cut on Sirius’ cheekbone. Sirius hasn’t volunteered an explanation, and Remus certainly isn’t going to ask, but... 

“C’mon,” says Sirius, after a moment. “You wouldn’t want to be late, would you, Prefect?” 

“Idiot,” says Remus, grinning faintly, and they go. 

*** 

James wasn’t joking about wanting Sirius to apologise. 

“Seriously?” says Sirius, quite baffled. 

“Yeah,” says James, without looking up from the trunk he’s rummaging in. “So?” 

“Well, I’m not going to,” says Sirius, arms crossed in front of his chest. “This is ridiculous, honestly.” 

“Right, then I suppose you’re not coming with,” says James, emerging from the trunk with the Cloak in his hand. He looks much angrier than he’d sounded. “Moony? Pete?” 

“I think I’d rather stay here,” Remus finds himself saying. The look of fury on James’ face wanes slightly. 

“Might be wiser, yes,” he says, and he motions for Peter to follow him. Peter has a face like he’s half-expecting Sirius to hex him in retaliation. Sirius remains impassive. 

“See you later, Moony,” says James, pointedly, and he and Peter head out of their dormitory and into the slumbering castle (they’re off to explore a new, quite promising secret passage). Remus sighs. 

“I’d really like to know what _his_ problem is,” hisses Sirius, blotches of pink high on his cheekbones. There’s bruising around the cut on his face, and the wound itself looks like it might be headed towards infection. Remus tries to imagine caring so little about potential scarring to not even bother with some Dittany. “We were just having a laugh, weren’t we?” 

“Sure,” says Remus, and he finds that he’s very tired all of a sudden. 

*** 

Sirius _was _ just having a laugh, that much is true. Nothing more and nothing less than what they’ve been doing for the past five years. And yet, Remus doesn’t think he’s ever lain in bed, like he’s doing now, desperately trying to convince himself that there’s no reason for the Headmaster to have written to his parents. Sirius’ parents, of course, yes (Remus’ mind returns once more to the cut on Sirius’ face); Snape’s parents, too (they spotted him after lunch, the greasy wanker, walking up to the castle with a surly faced woman who could only be his mother); but why should the Lupins be informed? 

Remus hasn’t done anything wrong. 

Except, of course, letting Sirius and the others into his secret. Not that he had much choice in the matter — James and Sirius are clever, they worked out the basics on their own. But still, he probably shouldn’t have told them _everything_ (the Willow, the passage, the Shack). He certainly shouldn’t have… well, _encouraged_ them. He’s definitely guilty of that, if nothing else. 

What if, Heaven forbid, his parents decide to take him out of school? 

Unhappy, Remus sneaks a covert glance at Sirius, who’s sitting up in his bed and reading by wand light. Five years into their friendship, it still amazes him that Sirius hasn’t tired of their company. Well, not of James’ company — Sirius and James are very well matched, Remus thinks. He and Peter, on the other hand… 

“Are you practicing wordless jinxes on me, Moony?” asks Sirius, conversationally, without looking up from his book. “I think I felt a vague prickling on the side of my nose, you might be onto something.” 

Remus feels his cheeks heat up. He didn’t mean for Sirius to know that he was pretending to be asleep, let alone that he was staring at him. He wonders, not for the first time, how he would feel about the whole situation if it had been, say, Peter who tried to trick Snape into... 

“If I were,” he forces himself to joke, “you wouldn’t need to ask.” 

*** 

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea, Sirius.” 

Sirius takes a drag. 

“Nonsense,” he says, in a voice that’s only slightly croaky. He’s getting better at the whole smoking thing, Remus has to admit, but he’s not quite to the point of actually making it look even vaguely pleasurable. “The passage leads to Honeydukes’ basement, doesn’t it? It couldn’t be easier.” 

“Maybe if you had James’ Cloak,” says Remus, unconvinced. “But even then, I don’t really see the point. We’ve been to Hogsmeade a million times already.” 

Sirius flicks the butt of his cigarette out of the window. 

“The point,” he says, swinging his long legs off the ledge and onto their dormitory’s floor, “is that I’m bored, and it’s nice out, and I don’t see why I should be the only sorry sod left in this bloody castle on a Sunday afternoon.” 

“McGonagall will kill you if she finds out.” 

Sirius rolls his eyes. 

“_If_,” he says, in a tone that fully conveys his feelings towards Remus’ cautious attitude. “C’mon, Moony, it’ll be fun.” 

*** 

“Moony, for fuck’s sake,” says Sirius. “I said move to _your_ left.” 

Remus exhales sharply. It’s a very windy day, the unseasonably bright sunshine is giving him a headache, and Sirius is being particularly insufferable for someone who’s having his every whim catered to. Not to mention, he still hasn’t heard from his parents. They usually write on Sundays. 

“Turn your back to the wind,” he suggests, a touch more sharply than he had intended to. 

Sirius looks surprised by Remus’ sudden lack of cooperation. 

“My hair gets in my face if I do that,” he says, stubbornly unlit cigarette hanging from his bottom lip. The explanation does very little to placate Remus, who’s now unpleasantly reminded of the fact that he quite resembled a vexed basset hound the one time he tried to follow in Sirius’ footsteps and grew his hair long-ish. Sirius cups his hands around his cigarette once more. “Now, if you’d just move to…” 

“I’m not going to stand here and be a bloody human wind shield for you,” snaps Remus, his irritation at Sirius finally coming to a head. “Does it ever occur to you that I might have better things to do on a Sunday than stand here and watch you try to operate a bloody lighter?” 

Sirius takes the cigarette out of his mouth. 

“Go on, then,” he says, in a chilly voice that makes Remus’ blood boil. “Believe me, nobody’s stopping you.” 

“You fucking…” 

Remus trails off. He doesn’t think there’s a word for what he’s trying to accuse Sirius of doing, exactly, and the lack of a viable insult only adds fuel to the fire of his anger. 

_Conceited_, he thinks, bitterly, staring at Sirius‘ handsome face. _Vain._

But it isn’t true, of course. Between the two of them, Sirius is not the one pathetic enough to have made an effort for their clandestine Hogsmeade trip — that would be Remus, uncomfortable in a brand-new, polo neck jumper. Sirius is starting to look faintly amused. 

“Well?” he says, his chin tilted in mock curiosity. 

“You fucking _prick_,” says Remus, shoving Sirius with enough force to actually send him sprawling backwards. Sirius, caught unaware, lands with a wet thud in the muddy grass, inches from a large, thorny brush. Remus kneels over him, fist raised. “You selfish, selfish…” 

Remus stops mid-sentence, horrified by the realization of what he had been about to do. His knees feel cold and damp. He lowers his fist. 

“Listen, mate, I’m sorry,” he begins, bracing himself for Sirius’ revenge. “It’s just that this whole thing with…” 

Sirius doesn’t say anything. He’s panting slightly, which Remus dearly hopes is not a consequence of the fall, but other than that he remains perfectly still. There’s a very peculiar look in his beautiful eyes. 

“Pads, are you all right?” 

Sirius answers Remus’ nervous inquiry with the slightest of nods. His gaze is unwavering. Remus is suddenly very aware of the fact that he’s straddling Sirius’ legs. 

“Right,” he says, feeling an ugly blush creep up from under the high neck of his jumper. Sirius, who’s got impressive arms and could easily overpower Remus if he wanted to, is still unnervingly motionless. Seconds tick by. 

“Oi, Lupin, hiding in the bushes, are we? Bloody freak.” 

Mulciber’s unpleasant voice snaps Sirius out of his strange reverie. In the fraction of a moment it takes Remus to fully understand what’s happening, he’s already turned into the dog, teeth bared against the Slytherin intrusion. 

After that, time seems to move very quickly. 

*** 

“I promise I had never seen that dog before, Professor. It jumped out from behind a bush and it… it ran at Mulciber before I could stop it.” 

McGonagall looks both weary and highly skeptical. 

“What were you doing in the bushes, then, Lupin?” 

It’s a good question, Remus feels, if not one he’s prepared to answer truthfully. What _were_ he and Sirius doing? There are words people use for blokes who look at other blokes the way Sirius was looking at him. They aren’t pleasant words. Not that _he_ really minded, if he’s being honest, at least not as long as- 

“Nothing,” he says. “I was just… I wanted to be alone for a while, I think.” 

McGonagall’s face softens slightly. 

“Be very careful if you spot the dog again, Lupin,” she says, after a brief pause. “It took quite some work to patch up Mulciber properly. Now go back to your Common Room.” 

*** 

Sirius, all things considered, is Remus’ favourite mate. It’s not that he doesn’t like James and Peter — he does, they’re both excellent pals — it’s just that Sirius is quite possibly the only person who appears to never have given Remus’ lycanthropy a second thought, and that alone is enough to earn him Remus’ everlasting devotion. 

That said, Remus isn’t stupid, and it didn’t take him long to make peace with the idea that Sirius’ favourite mate is definitely James. He’d take James over himself anyday, too, if he had to choose. It’s never been an issue. 

It’s never been an issue _until now_, that is. 

He checks the wall clock. It’s almost midnight, and he’s shivering without a jacket over his stupid jumper, but he’s found that he can’t imagine actually going back to their Common Room (let alone their dormitory) without knowing if Sirius has ever looked at James the way he was looking at him earlier that afternoon. 

On the face of it, the whole thing is pointless. Remus doesn’t like blokes _like that_, he doesn’t think, no matter how undeniably pretty Sirius’ eyes might be (they’re very pretty). 

And if there’s a stirring in his pants at the memory of having Sirius under him, well, he’s only human. He’s never had a girlfriend, isn’t likely to get one anytime soon. Any sort of interpersonal contact that could conceivably result in somebody else touching his cock is bound to get a reaction from- 

“The train platform, Moony? _Really_? Of all the places in Hogsmeade!” 

Remus looks up, startled. He wasn’t expecting Sirius to come looking for him. 

“I reckon Aberforth would sell you Firewhisky if you asked, for example,” muses Sirius, cigarette-less for once. “Of course, the platform is much cleaner than his pub — much less drafty, too, so you might be onto something here.” 

Remus blinks. The way Sirius is acting, you’d think nothing out of the ordinary had happened the previous afternoon. 

“How did you…?” 

“The passage behind the mirror on the fourth floor. Quite convenient. Not sure about ‘structurally sound’, though, I think it passes right underneath the-” 

“Isn’t it right by the cupboard where Filch keeps all his mops?” 

Sirius grins. 

“Yeah, but I had a trick up my sleeve, ” he confirms, producing James’ Invisibility Cloak from behind his back. “Well, not literally up my sleeve, more like over my entire… relax, Moony, I promise James gave it to me willingly,” he adds, in response to Remus’ unspoken inquiry. 

“Good,” says Remus, softly. If James and Sirius are back on speaking terms, it’s only a matter of time before Sirius stops spending time with Remus alone, which means that there won’t be any more incidents, which means that he can safely go back to ignoring... 

“Mind if I sit down?” 

“Er, sure.” 

“Thank you,” says Sirius, settling on the bench at a respectful distance from Remus, who’s surprised to find himself quite disappointed by this development. “So, about last afternoon…” 

“Mulciber is going to be all right, McGonagall said.” 

Sirius laughs. 

“I really don’t give a shit about Mulciber, Moony. I think I do owe you an apology, though.” 

Remus swallows nervously. 

“What for?” 

Sirius is silent for a while. 

“For putting you on the spot, I think. I had sort of convinced myself that you… but I think at this point it’s clear that you don’t, and I don’t want you to feel awkward around me, so I promise it won’t happen again.” 

Remus takes a deep breath. 

“Actually,” he says, staring at the train tracks in front of him and trying very hard to block out the overwhelming worry that his next trip home on the Hogwarts Express might be his last, “I don’t think you have anything to apologise for.” 

“I don’t?” repeats Sirius, baffled. 

“Not at all,” confirms Remus, and the more he talks about it, the more he realizes that it’s true, and the more he wishes Sirius would move in closer. “I… you weren’t wrong about me.” 

“Oh,” says Sirius. “That’s… well, that’s brilliant, isn’t it?” 

Remus can’t help but grin. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard Sirius sound so endearingly eager — the whole thing is simultaneously very flattering and mildly terrifying. What if it turns out that he’s terrible? 

“I’ve never done anything with anyone,” he confesses, grateful for the nearly total darkness they’re sitting in. “Just so you know.” 

“Me neither,” says Sirius quickly. “I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it, though.” 

Remus grins wider, the implications of what Sirius is saying going straight to his hardening cock. 

“Good to know,” he says, covering Sirius’ warm hand with his slightly trembling one. Strangely enough, he finds, all the fears that have haunted him over the last few days — being taken out of school, being left behind, being shunned — are momentarily reduced to a mere background annoyance. “We’ll have to figure it out together, then, won’t we?”


End file.
